


Well In Hand

by onthedriftinthetardis (on_the_drift)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crack, F/M, Fluff, Innuendo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-12
Updated: 2016-07-12
Packaged: 2018-07-23 02:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7462632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/on_the_drift/pseuds/onthedriftinthetardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A well-earned beach day with Rose, Jack, and Nine. Dramatis personae also include three trashy magazines, a Slitheen egg, and a bottle of spray tan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Well In Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Written for timepetalsprompts' weekly drabble prompt, "tan lines." I was also inspired by "A Fightin' Hand" by jeeno2 and "Second Hand" by mountaingirlheidi. The blame is mine alone.
> 
> Unbeta'd. (Obviously.)

The Doctor was fast asleep. Jack knew this because he and Rose had tried repeatedly to wake him, but his eyes had remained closed, his breathing slow and steady, unresponsive even to Rose calling him while prodding him in the side. 

They were all exhausted, but no one more than the Time Lord, who had stayed awake for most of a month. They had arrived at Raxacoricofallapatorius with the egg that had once been Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen, a.k.a. Margaret Blaine, only to be told that they could not bring a Slitheen to the planet until she was one month old. Unfortunately for all of them, Margaret Slitheen had proven to be just as difficult as an egg (having to be turned every twenty minutes) and infant as she had as an adult. 

Rose had thought the natives of Raxacoricofallapatorius were disgusting as adults, but that was nothing to the foul bathing, the odious burping, the loathsome diaper changing, and the (ugh) frankly disturbing feeding of a newborn Slitheen. In an effort to spare her the worst of it, the Doctor had taken on the brunt of the duties, insisting to Rose that as he knew the most about the species, he could provide a better standard of care than either she or Jack could. 

Jack had helped at first, but he was only human, and after three days of looking after baby Margaret, the former Time Agent's constant retching got on the Doctor’s nerves, and he allowed him to stay on board the TARDIS in exchange for a bare minimum of babysitting while the Doctor rested. 

But they had all survived the ordeal, and turned the newly-reformed member of society over to the Raxacoricofallapatorian authorities when she turned 30 days and one minute old. 

The Doctor was in such a celebratory mood that Rose had been able to cajole him into a beach day with no more than a hopeful smile. 

“Reckon we deserve a holiday after the past month,” he grinned through his fatigue. “Some of us more than others,” he added, with a sidelong glance at Jack. 

“Hey, I tried to help,” Jack objected. “Is it my fault I have a sensitive gag reflex?”

At this, the Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Come to think of it, if you could've fixed that, you would've,” he smirked. 

Rose dropped her eyes and lightly bit her lip. The Doctor cleared his throat. “Right. Beach holiday, it is,” he confirmed, and Rose beamed at him. 

“Brilliant! It’ll give me a chance to catch up on some reading and work on my tan,” Rose enthused. “What about you, Doctor?”

“Well, I do have some temporal mechanics reading to catch up on,” he said matter-of-factly. “And a bit of transdimensional engineeri…”

“I can't believe that's your holiday reading,” Rose interrupted, scandalized. “This is meant to be a fun break, Doctor. Walk on the beach, sip a piña colada, go for a swim. Live a little, yeah?”

The Doctor frowned and fussed a bit, but of course he gave in to Rose in the end. He piloted the TARDIS to the holiday resort moon Escondar Beta 5, where it was always sunset, and purple waves curled and broke on the turquoise sand in perfect rhythm. Meaning, of course, that it was deadly dull to a man like the Doctor. And after he'd taken a walk on the beach with Rose and Jack, had a _ho’ok chiaw_ (which tasted more like whiskey than a piña colada, but did come with a tiny umbrella), and taught Rose how to bodysurf, he'd finally fallen asleep while Rose read her trashy celebrity gossip rags and soaked up the sunshine. 

Rose and Jack were quiet at first, letting the man have his well-earned nap. Two hours later, however, after Rose had finished her magazines, slathered on some sunscreen, and slipped on a cover-up before she got sunburned by the intense UV rays, and the Doctor was still sleeping, she and Jack started to speak normally. After even this didn't wake him, they started trying to wake him deliberately by increasingly ridiculous means, until Rose gave up and curled up next to him. Jack lay down on the other side of the Doctor and said he'd keep watch, which he faithfully did for a whole quarter of an hour before he got bored and looked over at his friends speculatively. 

It was obvious to anyone with eyes in their head that the Doctor and Rose were head over heels for each other. But the Doctor didn't think he deserved her, and Rose thought the Doctor was above her. “ _Idiots_ ,” Jack thought, shaking his head. He noticed that the Doctor's swim trunks had shifted slightly in his sleep, and he still had no sign of a tan, never mind a sunburn. And that's when Jack had a dangerous idea. He reached into his beach bag and withdrew a small spray bottle. 

Jack checked to make sure that both of his companions were still asleep. Carefully, while he watched the Time Lord for any sign of consciousness, he placed his hand on the Doctor's stomach, just above the waistband of his trunks. To his horror, the man sighed and started to move. 

“Rose,” the Doctor moaned softly. Jack froze in place. 

The Doctor shifted, and put his hand over Jack's, squeezing slightly, still asleep. A minute later, after Jack decided he wasn't actually having a heart attack, he lifted the spray bottle over his and the Doctor's intertwined hands, said a quick prayer, and squeezed the trigger. A fine mist covered their hands, and the Doctor's exposed chest and belly. 

At first, nothing happened. But within moments, the Doctor’s torso (and their hands) darkened just a shade — he wasn’t bronzed, but there was definitely a light tan whereas before he’d been more off-white. A wide grin spread over Jack’s face as he realized he’d done it!

But then the light grip on his hand tightened. He looked up to see a pair of angry blue eyes glaring at him. He swallowed hard and tried to ignore the pain. 

“Jack,” came a quiet voice in a Northern accent, “What are you playing at?”

“It’s not what it looks like,” he insisted, realizing the moment he said it that it was a mistake. 

“It _looks_ like you were trying to cop a feel,” the Doctor growled. “Which I should’ve seen coming, but I chose to trust you.”

“I know, and you can!” Jack said in a panicked voice. “I know it doesn’t look like that right now, but believe me, I have your and Rose’s interests at heart.”

“Don’t you dare bring Rose into it! What has she got to do with it?” the Doctor hissed, sitting up and twisting Jack’s arm until he had to fall on his back to stop the pain.

“I know how you feel about her — and how she feels about you right back!” he said, voice strained.

“Shhhh!” the Doctor admonished, looking over at Rose to make sure she was asleep. “Shut it! What do you know, you nob?”

“I know you’re in love with her — and I know she feels the same way about you!”

At this, the Doctor rolled over and pinned Jack down by his arms on his towel. “Shut up!” the Doctor warned Jack, seething at the former Time Agent’s cheek. Jack lost his grip on the spray bottle, and he dropped it in the sand. Seeing this, the Doctor made a grab for it, but Jack tried to intercept him, managing at the same time to push the Doctor off of him, and roll on top of him.

“Wha’s going on?” said a voice sleepily, and both of the men stopped wrestling each other for the bottle, and looked over at Rose, who of course, had woken at their rather noisy altercation. 

They hurriedly separated, and both of them stood up. The Doctor held his hands out in front of him, as if he were trying to calm a wild animal. “It’s nothing, Rose. Go back to sleep,” he said, in what he hoped was a soothing voice. It wasn’t.

“Have you two been fighting?” said Rose incredulously. But just then, her eyes lit on the Doctor’s stomach — newly tanned, except for a lighter patch in the shape of … entwined hands. Rose’s eyes narrowed, staring at him. “I see what you’ve been up to,” she said, and both men winced inside at the note of hurt in her voice. “Well, I won’t stick around where I’m not wanted!” The Doctor quickly looked down at his own belly, seeing, for the first time, what Jack had done.

Rose quickly gathered her things and stalked off toward the TARDIS. 

“Rose, no, wait!” said the Doctor desperately, “It’s not what it looks like!”

Rose turned briefly to look daggers at him, and the Doctor was sure her withering glare would stay with him in his nightmares for a long time to come.

“I’m going to my room, since the two of you obviously don’t need me to entertain yourselves,” she shouted. “Don’t follow me!” She opened the TARDIS door, went in, and slammed it behind her. 

The Doctor glared at Jack with the full force of the Oncoming Storm, and Jack involuntarily took a step backward. “I’m following her,” the Doctor snarled at the other man. “You stay here!” 

The Doctor quickly followed Rose into the TARDIS. Jack could hear the snick of the lock that meant he was now stranded on a beach moon in the Andromeda galaxy. He shrugged. _Could have been worse_.

He listened for a while as the sounds of the Doctor and Rose shouting at each other escaped the TARDIS, but the yelling gradually subsided, and then stopped. They didn’t come out. Jack grinned, and set off down the beach in the direction of the rather good seafood restaurant (and bar) the Doctor had described on the way here. 

***

Hours later, after a good meal and a quick encounter under the pier with one of the bar patrons, a rather handsome Escondarian, Jack wandered back and found the TARDIS still sitting there. He sat down nearby to wait. 

He didn’t have to wait long. The TARDIS must have informed the Doctor he was there, because the Time Lord opened the door and poked his head outside within the span of a few minutes. 

“So you’re still here,” he growled, and suddenly, Jack was on alert. Had things not gone as he’d planned? The Doctor strode towards him, stiff-legged, and Jack had a hard time holding his ground, wondering what the Time Lord was going to do to him. But he had no time to prepare as the Doctor hurtled toward him and tackled him around the waist, lifting him onto one shoulder and delivering a powerful swat to his rear. “That’s for making Rose think we were shagging,” he pronounced, and set him down again. Before Jack could even react, the Doctor grabbed his face in his hands and planted a kiss on surprised lips. Jack closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the Doctor was grinning at him. “That’s for making Rose think we were shagging.”

Jack grinned back bemusedly, “So it worked, then — she got jealous?”

“She did. And I’m still not saying what you did was right… but we talked things out, and, well…” the Doctor trailed off into a purr like the cat that had got the cream.

“I know that look. You and Rose finally got together, didn’t you!” Jack laughed.

“She’s sleeping again,” the Doctor said, answering by not answering. “Worn out, I expect” he said affectionately, and rather smugly. “Thanks, Jack,” he said, and handed over a shiny Yale key on a chain. 

“No problem,” Jack grinned, “I had things well in hand.”


End file.
